A GQ Guide to the Indie Rock Work Out

In the past 10 years, slack indie rockers have slowly unshackled themselves and incorporated more bass, energy, and (gasp!) excitement into their mix. With the release of the Field's new album, Looping State of Mind, the trend continues. Here, we present a field guide to a decade of danceable jams

I’ve hit the treadmill next to Patton Oswalt and split sets on the pull-up bar with Harold from Harold & Kumar, so I’m fairly used to seeing the kind of celebrity at my gym not particularly known for their chiseled physique. But the guy who’s the spitting image of James Murphy? There’s absolutely no way it’s actually him. Because isn’t a huge part of LCD Soundsystem’s appeal the idea that James Murphy is just some schlub who never goes to the gym because he can’t take his vinyl with him? That’s more or less what he said when Nike commissioned him for the first ever workout record for indie kids, 2006’s 45:33—ostensibly made for the type of person who can run a 5k by day and namedrop ESG by night. Intentionally or not, it draws attention to what has been happening in indie rock the past decade—as a byproduct of ditching long-held grudges against house music, disco, R&B, and hip-hop production—pretty much everything outside of the standards set by Pavement—you can actually take some of this stuff to the gym in the rare moments that Waka Flocka Flame isn’t cutting it. And the best of it tends to have certain artistic similarities: an omnivorous approach to genre, an album flow that plays out more like a DJ mix, BPMs that gets your blood moving without being overly spastic while maintaining an edge of noise, abrasion or general badassness. Oh, and the drums are _loud. _Here’s some of the best the decade has offered. And to hear the full playlist, visit GQ on Spotify

Nearly 10 years after celebrating excess in all forms on the acid house/rock masterpiece Screamadelica, Bobby Gillespie rang in the new millennium by cutting out all the joy (and vowels) for beat-driven, sulfurous rants that felt like the perfect foreshadowing for a politically fucked-up, warmongering decade that would make _XTRMNTR _look like prophecy. It begins with "Kill All Hippies" and that’s one of the _least _intense songs here.

Prior to this album, Ladytron were perhaps the best electroclash act, if not the only good one. It would’ve been understandable for them to ride out that fashion party until the last champagne flute was emptied and the last line snorted, but in 2005, they morphed into a silvery synth-rock band whose blood ran hot even if they remained unbothered on the outside. "Destroy Everything You Touch" and "Sugar," which treats drugs, sex and druggy sex as matter-of-factly as possible, are prime examples. This is the girl at the gym you’re totally checking out and she knows it—she just won’t give you the satisfaction of acknowledging it.

_Echoes _would’ve been a mortal lock for this list if they hadn’t dropped the smooveness of "Open Up Your Heart" right between "Heaven" and "I Need Your Love" in one of the most baffling sequencing decisions of the decade. There’s none of the red-hot DFA production here, but they celebrate being untethered to dance-punk credibility by ditching the punk and grooving harder, louder and sillier—a more apt accompaniment for Luke Jenner’s, um, emphatic lyrics on songs like "Don Gone Do It" and "First Gear."

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Weirdo hip-hop isn’t supposed to knock this hard and these guys are about as weirdo as hip-hop gets—this is supposedly part two of a trilogy involving the tribulations of a white rapper Hour Hero Yes in some bizarre metaphysical plane, but the real story is how this sadly defunct Bay Area collective mash booty bass, Animal Collective at their most tribal, Aphex Twin, and pop-locking electro (and that’s just the first five minutes) with teeth-chattering loudness that lunges out of your headphones.

The sweatiest math-rock band in existence drops the absolute motherlode of man-machine interplay, drummer John Stanier lunging for his seven-foot-high crash cymbal in the most overt of this record’s many feats of strength. When we welcome our new robot overloads, they’ll be marching to "Atlas."

Imagine the dread of dubstep filtered through the voracious hunger and aggressiveness of grime’s totemic _Run The Road _compilationand you get the likes of "Angry," "Murder We," and "Poison Dart," demonically pissed-off bangers with subwoofer-atomizing bass.

What if you went to one of Black Dice’s legendary junkyard shows back in Brooklyn of 2002, but everyone was taking ecstasy instead of cocaine and PBR? Here’s the bracing and surprisingly blissful result where the constant catharsis of noise rock and rave music meet.

What if the D&D kids who played the oboe in marching band were the school bullies? They’d probably be whomping on you to the self-explanatory battle cries of "We Want War," "Attack Music," and "Fire-Power." These chainmail-wearing weirdos combine chintzy horn presets, six-feet high drums and Foley samples (most appropriately, a skull being smashed) for a prog opus that references everything from M.I.A. to _Ruff Ryders, Ryde Or Die, Vol. 2 _to Japanese military chants.

Gang Gang’s most consistently enthralling, globetrotting amalgamation of Oriental pop, dancehall rhythms and Williamsburg noise-jams, they’ve come a long way from Survival of the Shittest, which sounds exactly like you think it does. All the while, Lizzie Bougatsos hovers above it all like some sort of killer yoga instructor—don’t let the mystic jargon or pan-Asian affectations fool you, this is meant to totally work your ass.

Perhaps the most logical continuation of what _45:33 _was hoping to accomplish—the same marathon grooves Al Wilder sported on his prior classics of minimal electronic music, but this time pumped up with overwhelming shoegaze beauty, funk breakdowns and it sounds fantastic loud. An hour of the aural equivalent of runner’s high.

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